Sunday, November 20, 2011

Shrinking Lake Travis

Last week Abbey and I drove out to Lake Travis to walk around Sometimes Island. Since the water is so low at Lake Travis, you can now walk from Mansfield Damn park to Sometimes Island. I was shocked at how low the lake is currently! I was curious to see how low the lake has been in the past and I found this information (found on LCRA's website).....

Current Lake Travis: 626 feet

Exactly one year ago: 668 feet

2 years ago 648 feet

Lowest on record (records go back to 1943) in Nov: 616.98 (lowest ever was 615.29 Aug 1951)

We are currently just over 10 feet away from the record, and I have a feeling we'll beat that record. Based on the history of the lake, the low was typically for a month or two but then it started to raise back up. So let's hope that we can start raising back up soon!! We need rain, and lots of it!!

From the Mansfield Damn Park. At one point where I was standing was underwater, but that was due to an insane amount of rain one spring (I believe it was in 2006).

Abbey standing on rocks that are typically under water.

LOVE this picture of her! Little Miss Adventurer

One of the many boat ramps closed on Lake Travis. I believe all ramps were closed by August of this year due to the water being so low

At the end of the boat ramp... as you can see no way a truck could get down there towing a boat.

Lots of old beer cans were littered along the shore... so old they had the pull tabs on the top!

Here is a picture looking back at Mansfield Dam... and typically this part of the lake is under a lot of water and can't be seen.

There were a TON of stumps out there. I remember hearing that before the lake was damned it was an orchard, and it makes sense seeing all of the stumps out there.

Even an old trash can was out there

Transmission? or some type of mechanical part

Hello! I bet the last time I was this far out in Lake Travis, I was on a boat floating around. Who knew I would be walking along this part of the lake!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Pit Bull Awareness Weekend

A couple of Sundays ago Abbey and I headed out to Republic Park in Downtown Austin for a Pit Bull Awareness Weekend. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it was a really great festival with plenty of booths, lots of great looking and behaving dogs, and an awesome Frisbee show!

Abbey checking out the other dogs and items around her

Abbey greeting this pup (butt sniff) with an awesome pink Mohawk

(a little hard to see from behind)

This cutie was totally content wearing a cow costume

The festival had a fun show of dog catching Frisbee,,, these dogs were amazing and seemed like they flew through the air and amazingly picked the Frisbees out of the air

zooooommmm!!!

Might be the cutest puppy ever!

(well... right behind our dogs and any of our family/friends dogs)

As we were leaving the festival, I noticed that a booth was painting dogs toe nails. Midtown Groomers were painting nails for a donation to a local pit bull shelter. Abbey isn't fond of people touching her feet so I wasn't sure how she would react. We got her up on the table okay but that is when she gave me a look like "What in the Hell is going on?"

Abbey has black toe nails so the groomer had to put glitter on top of the nail polish :) My little girl's first experience with glitter! :) Abbey was not as excited about the polish as I was, so after a lot of wiggling around (and at one point 3 people holding her in place), we stopped with her front paws. They looked pretty good, but I bet that will be the last time that Abbey has pink glittery toe nails :)

The festival was a great time and I'm glad that Love-A-Bull is trying to turn peoples perception around of Pit Bulls. I know Pit Bulls have a horrible reputation when in reality it should be the jackasses that raise the Pit Bulls incorrectly that get a horrible reputation. The entire park was swarming with Pit and Pit Mixes and I saw ZERO fights and minimal agression (no more than what I see at dog parks). I hate the reputation Pit Bulls have, but with more public awareness like this festival hopefully things will start to turn around.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A few weekends back we went to a friends wedding in Houston. I thought Bud needed to get out and see the world so off we went!

The chapel was beautiful and HUGE. We parked on one side of the buildings and it turned out we were on the wrong side,,,, so off we went in search of the right chapel.

Bud really thought the car was cool, so he wanted to take a picture in front of the car and pretend like he is a big baller :) (tough guy/rich guy for those of you unsure of what a big baller was)

Bud peeping around a column at the church

Once at the reception I put down my purse at our table and Bud decided to walk around to check things out. He found the "gifts" for the people attending the reception and decided to dig in and hang out. No gold chocolate coins for you Bud!

The food at the reception was really good! I sampled a little of everything and Bud thought that gave him a free pass to sample from my plate. He only took a nibble or two so I let him have some.

Who knew Bud was such a flirt! Here he is with the ladies... I wonder if that little bugger was trying to look up our skirts?

The wedding cake was very pretty! It was also surrounded by waiters and waitresses,,, so I am surprised that Bud made it so close to getting a taste before the rest of us! Luckily I found him before he took a chunk out of the cake.

Ahhh... the joys of an open bar at a wedding! Bud stuck with Gin and Tonics all night and he even convinced the bartender to let him tend bar for a few minutes.

After a few to many Gin and Tonics, he was using the glasses to help prop him up.

Bud met the groom and wanted to hang out with him for a little bit so he could be the center of attention. Chris let him hang out in his vest (a little hard to see him since it is white on white). He wasn't as transparent as he thought, John spied Bud hanging out with Chris!

Bud really enjoyed his first wedding and liked sitting on the dance floor watching people dance the night away.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Friends, Road Trip and a Wedding

We carpooled with our friends to Houston for a friends wedding last weekend. I don't know the couple very well, but Jim went to college with the groom. All of our friends were going so we knew we would have a fun time :)

We were cutting it really close driving to Houston hours before the ceremony. Once we reached our friends mom's house, we had 30 minutes to change and get to the ceremony. Classy people that we are, we got done what we needed to and made it to the ceremony by the hair of our chinny chin chin.

We found the church with about 5 minutes to spare BUT this damn church was freakin massive and we parked on the wrong side. So we walked very fast while following the signs, and made it just as they were shutting the doors to the church. I'm not going to lie.. I was worried this was going to be a traditional church ceremony but we got lucky and it was only about a 30 minute ceremony. The pastor, who was youngish, was kind of cheesy talking how the groom had to wait on the bride hand and foot and joked about them having kids soon. It wasn't my type of ceremony but maybe they liked it.

Lindsay, Ashley, me and Tammy in front of the Rolls, that will drive the bride and groom from the ceremony to the reception. The car even had it's own bottle of Grey Poupon. As you can see... tall girls on the left, short girls on the right.

We spent a few minutes talking with friends after the ceremony and before the reception. Here is Jim, Jason and John.

Everybody on the dance floor watching the bride and groom dance (and me sneaking on the floor to take the picture :)

Back to photos in the middle... I was to lazy to fix the photos above :)

Madelyn with her sister and dad dancing

Jennifer and Charlie dancing the night away

The wedding had a live band, which was really fun. The only complaint I would have, is they seemed to be very limited on the songs they knew. I think we heard Brickhouse like 10 times... either that or it was the longest version EVA.

Julie, Whitney and Ashley taking a break from the dance floor

Madelyn and Chris dancing

Erin, Ashley, Lindsay and Jennifer

Chris showing he can "move like Jagger" (current song reference for my older blog fans ;)